Death to Black Metal

Liturgy and Deafheaven have gained many fans-- along with some enemies-- by fearlessly expanding the idea of what black metal can be. Brandon Stosuy talks to both bands' frontmen about where the genre's going next.

I ended the previous Show No Mercy by saying "2011 will go down as the year I got sick of talking about black metal." Plenty of people have asked me about that. Basically: I'm tired of the same narrative being rehashed in features that focus on the story of Burzum's Varg Vikernes killing his bandmate Euronymous, something that happened in 1993 and is no longer central to the genre. I'm not necessarily interested in creating a new narrative, but we do need to push that older story into the background, where it belongs in 2012. It's also worth asking if "black metal" is just an adjective at this point, or something bigger.

In this spirit, I'm starting the year by looking at two American metal bands, Liturgy and Deafheaven, who can be considered "black" but who just as easily could be considered something else. In either case, I find what they're doing to be more radical, compelling, and "kvlt" than most folks who still slather on the face paint.

I also wanted to interview Liturgy frontman Hunter Hunt-Henrix again because when we first spoke in a 2009 installment of Show No Mercy, it was before the success and subsequent backlash he and his band-- but mostly he-- experienced. As I cleanse myself from a certain strain of black metal discourse, I thought it made sense to revisit our earlier discussion and to see where we are three years later. Deafheaven are another American band dipping into "black metal" and coming out with their own sound. Like Liturgy, they get criticized for not being "metal" enough (just look at their press photo), but when folks are given a blind taste test, they usually end up liking them quite a bit.

Both bands are currently about to go on tour, and Liturgy have some dates in Florida next month with noise-pop duo Sleigh Bells and Diplo-- something that ought to get the message boards burning up all over again.Liturgy: Tyler Dusenbury, Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, Bernard Gann; photo by Jason Nocito.

I spoke with Hunt-Hendrix in person and via email for the dialogue below. Following the Q&A you'll find the new video for Aesthethica's "True Will", directed by Hunt-Hendrix.

"I'm more interested in showing up as an abomination than in garnering buzz."

Hunter Hunt-Hendrix: I have no problem with the framework of ideas and gestures surrounding the band overshadowing the music. Music is about more than just the music, especially rock music. Especially black metal!

As for hatred from some people, culture ought to be a war. More and more with the internet, "what shows up" is synonymous "what is liked" and "what has value." There's an eerie vacuousness to this system, which seems eerier the more you learn about PR. Showing up as an abomination or a stain is much more interesting. I'm more interested in doing that than in garnering buzz. Not that I wasn't a little freaked out at first. And I was and am actually embarrassed by the Scion video. I hate it. But I sort of like feeling ashamed of certain things, like that's an important part of the process; battle scars from really being out in the void and making mistakes. To cope with it I began developing the "Stations of the Arkwork" text I'm working on, as well as frequently returning to a passage from Marcus Aurelius, which I would like to share with you:

"Be like the headland against which the waves break and break: it stands firm, until presently the watery tumult around it subsides once more to rest. 'How unlucky I am, that this should have happened to me!' By no means; say rather, 'How lucky I am, that it has left me with no bitterness; unshaken by the present, and undismayed by the future.' The thing could have happened to anyone, but not everyone would have emerged unembittered. So why put the one down to misfortune, rather than the other to good fortune? Can a man call anything a misfortune, if it is not a contravention of his nature; and can it be a contravention of his nature if it is not against that nature's will? Does this thing which has happened hinder you from being just, magnanimous, judicious, discreet, truthful, self-respecting, independent, and all else by which a man's nature comes to fulfillment? So here is a rule to remember in the future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not, 'this is a misfortune,' but, 'to bear this worthily is good fortune.'"

Pitchfork: That lack of bitterness is something that differentiates you from other black metal figures and may be something your critics get pissed off about. And I didn't make the Vikernes reference lightly-- this points to a specific difference between Second Wave black metal and the more recent USBM.

HHH: It's hard to speak for other recent USBM bands, but there probably is a general trend. My personal starting point is faith in a beyond of nihilism, modeled on the figure of Zarathustra. It is a legit pursuit in contemporary philosophy, e.g. Badiou's concept of truth or Meillassoux's vision of the Fourth World. I'm aware that a lot of people disagree, but I think black metal has great power as a medium for exploring the beyond of nihilism in a non-philosophical way.

Pitchfork: When I organized a 2009 show with you guys, Krieg, woe, and Malkuth, I remember Imperial from Krieg saying how it was great to see a new generation carrying on true black metal. It's hard for me to imagine a situation happening like that again, now that people are so focused on your ideas.

HHH: I agree Liturgy will never be accepted as true black metal at this point. Still, personally I think my attitude has more in common with that of the members of the second wave Helvete scene than any other black metal band working today, if you think about how resolute those kids were about bringing black metal into existence in spite of all the hatred from the death metal community. But there are other bands, maybe better bands, moving true black metal forward musically and keeping their mouths shut, so I don't think Imperial was wrong in a more general sense.

Pitchfork: What is "true" black metal to you?

HHH: In this context I just mean black metal bands that don't piss off people who care about what true black metal is. But my personal view of "true" black metal is, leaving aside musical form, related to courage, honesty, and rupture.

"I have fantasies about the redemption of rap metal. It seems like it would be impossible to do that really well, and that makes it interesting."

Pitchfork: Despite the focus on ideas, Aesthethica showed up in high spots on a number of year-end lists. How will the current hubbub around the band-- the crossover, the discussion about the theories-- affect the way you approach the next album? Do you have a new album in sight?

HHH: What I have in sight is an opera based on the character Ololon in William Blake's apocalyptic prophecies. A narrative multimedia gesamtkunstwerk. The idea is sort of a mirage, like some impossible goal on the horizon. I'm not sure yet what form it will take. Aesthethica was the end of an era for Liturgy. We knew that even before we recorded it, before there were any reactions to it. There was a linear trajectory of development to the first three releases, and they all come from the same pool of material, which is empty now. I don't know what else we'd make in that style that wouldn't just be self-imitation. The next concrete project is a studio album that is more varied in terms of genre and arrangement than anything we've done so far. I'm really getting in to bells. Also working on use of electronics to explore aspects of the burst beat which are impossible for a human, e.g. crossing the threshold between rhythm and pitch. And exploring ways to make lyrics more audible.

As for the effect of recognition on the approach towards the next album, it is very significant, actually. It's been cool to see these black metal think-pieces in the New Yorker and so on, and the year-end lists, and especially people liking the music. It's awesome, but insofar as it is a cultural turning point, it actually makes me less committed to black metal. The recognition turns it into safe territory. A legit creative process requires that the people who thought they understood you feel bewildered and even a little betrayed at every stage, with every release. It is this transcendentalist idea that the real creative activity is always brimming up over the series of concrete products, which approach something ineffable asymptotically but also contradict one another. I'm attracted to a space that is impossible, where I'm uncertain about how people will react. On a different note, being an active band has made me more attuned to what other people around me are making, and they are beginning to influence my taste. Sometimes I have fantasies about the redemption of rap metal.

Pitchfork: What interests you about rap metal?

HHH: Rap and metal, respectively, interest me. I think they're the two most fertile musical styles out there today. But attempts to combine the two have never produced anything that I can take seriously. It seems like it would be impossible to do that really well, and that makes it interesting.

Pitchfork: Were you into the Judgment Night soundtrack? Anthrax and Public Enemy?

HHH: Anthrax and Public Enemy? I wonder how I missed that. Sounds worse than Marilyn Manson and DMX. Speaking of turning away from black metal-- after I sent you my first round of answers you pointed me to a Left Hand Path list that dissed both you and Liturgy in the same sentence-- dissing you specifically for spending a few years as a proponent of bands like Krallice and declaring you're over black metal. Are you over black metal? And if so, why? I'm also curious about your sense of your role as a proponent of black metal for audiences outside the scene.

Pitchfork: I'm not over black metal-- I just got tired of the think pieces on the genre, stories that basically rehashed what everyone's been talking about for years. Black metal became ubiquitous for the narrative around it; people spend too much time talking about it and not enough time listening.

I've always just written about the music that interests me. If people who don't normally listen to metal are turned onto it via my writing, that's great-- but that wasn't my plan. I started Show No Mercy in 2007 because I wanted a place where I could talk about this music I was spending so much time with. There wasn't any agenda beyond that. I grew up with metal-- I remember getting metal cassettes for Christmas in fourth grade-- but, when I was in college, I got more into noise and noise-rock and other stuff. When I returned to metal, I was excited about it, and wanted to share that excitement.

Of course, covering metal in largely non-metal publications opens you up for ridicule from certain segments of the scene. It's something I've always found amusing, but I don't really have enough time in my life to go around fixating on things I hate-- I have a wife, a kid, projects. I am glad that part of the scene exists, though. It's entertaining, sort of like professional wrestling.

HHH: Yeah, I'm glad that part of the scene exists too. As for the think pieces in 2011, there has been good writing on the subject, and it is in fact hard to separate the music from the Norway bloodshed. It's like an origin myth, presenting these unresolved contradictions and always casting its shadow. Though it is important not to ignore the music altogether, and people can end up writing about the phenomenon of the phenomenon; the phenomenon gets canonized or entombed and loses its spark. That is one reason I feel the songwriting moving away from black metal into a space that is harder to define is like an outgrowth, not an abandonment.

Pitchfork: Can you talk a bit more about outgrowth vs. abandonment?

HHH: It is disappointing when I see bands begin to imitate themselves because they're stoked that they got a certain critical reaction and are hoping for more of the same the next time around. That's out of the question. Abandonment would be declaring that the project is over and switching gears with a violent disregard for the process of development. But by outgrowth I mean continuing on the same trail that brought Liturgy to where it was in 2011, but which does not lead in a direction that either proponents or haters of the band would be able to calculate.

Outgrowth is more like Nietzsche's self-overcoming. There are two kinds of growth towards a goal; in the Transcendental Black Metal paper I called them Fortification and Sacrifice. I wrote that at the level of genre, Transcendental Black Metal is in the mode of Sacrifice. But since 2007, Liturgy has been in the mode of Fortification, with TBM itself as the goal. Fortification is when organs or characteristics evolve in order to reach a goal. But the new organs change the picture. Sacrifice is the sacrifice of the goal on the basis of a new goal that is only now in view because of the organs that were developed for the sake of the old goal.

"It's not hard to imagine the rise of a totally digestible,alterna-rock-friendly black metal band at this point. But that'd be too far of a crossover for my taste."

Pitchfork: Something else that will change the songwriting, I would think, is the departure of your drummer Greg Fox. He's been such an integral part of the band. Why did he leave?

HHH: Greg wasn't so involved in Liturgy, really. Certainly not in the songwriting. We resonated musically for a while, but from early on it was clear the vibe wasn't right, and that this arrangement wouldn't continue with the next record after Aesthethica. It was a healthy differentiation, and no one got murdered. Greg is an awesome musician and I think his future projects are going to be really great.

Pitchfork: You have upcoming shows. Who's playing drums now?

HHH: [Guitarist] Bernard [Gann] and I are touring in February as a two piece with electronics-- live guitars with Ableton and Max/MSP tracks producing synth and burst beats, along with different sorts of ringing sample loops. We're working with the compositions in their rawest form and instantiating them in a different way. The idea is to purify the burst beat, to purge it of vestigial features relating to the blast beat. To do that we're recreating it in the context of high-bpm hardcore techno. The percussion is stripped down to a distorted kick sample oscillating between tempos that define gabber, hardstyle, extratone, so on, pulsing in relation to the harmonies. There will be other live configurations throughout the year, with different arrangements of the existing material. But we're not doing too much touring in 2012. The main thing is writing a new record and then putting together an ensemble to play the music live.

"I don't think anyone could describe a Liturgy show as a fun experience. But I would hope for an audience to be profoundly moved by our performances."

Pitchfork: How did the upcoming Sleigh Bells/Diplo tour come about? Do you expect receptive audiences?

HHH: Sleigh Bells invited us, and in the spirit of saying Yes we said Yes. Goes without saying that it is a more unusual combination even than playing with Mount Eerie or Chelsea Wolfe, but I'd like to think audiences will be down with it.

Pitchfork: Did you know Sleigh Bells before this?

HHH: No.

Pitchfork: You'll be an interesting foil to them; their music is very outward and sing-a-long while you guys seem to burrow into yourselves in an equally intense, but very insular way.

HHH: I'm sure Sleigh Bells relates to an audience in a very engaged, verbal way. It's cool when bands literally encourage the audience to dance more and have a better time. With Liturgy, we just play the music without really addressing anyone. I don't think anyone could describe a Liturgy show as a fun experience. I would hope for an audience to be profoundly moved by our performances. It's pretty seriousness-oriented. So I guess that's a difference.

Pitchfork: Every year for the past few, I feel like black metal's crossed over as much as it can-- and then something else happens. What are your thoughts on the American black metal scene of 2011 and what do you envision for 2012?

HHH: 2011 was confirmation of the inherent potential within black metal as a genre to be something different from what the scene surrounding it wants it to be. The gap between a genre as a cultural organism and the people involved in the scene is a really interesting thing, though it's important to distinguish between music crossing into the indie-mainstream world and a genre going beyond the limits that it has set for itself. As for the former, I hope the crossover doesn't go too far in 2012. It's not hard to imagine the rise of a totally digestible, alterna-rock-friendly black metal band at this point. But that'd be too far of a crossover for my taste. I want black metal to be somehow dangerous, some kind of impossible rift, even if it is a rift with itself, because that's how it touches reality. As for the latter, I think some more great things could happen. I was really blown away by the Blut Aus Nord material from this year, so that's a good sign for the future.